


Let me pull up a chair

by orphan_account



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), F/M, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:50:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Richie got to know the guy from the library mostly out of perseverance and spite.





	Let me pull up a chair

1.

Richie got to know the guy from the library mostly out of perseverance and spite.

Richie was, in the absolute simplest term possible, fueled by spite. Kind people - like Beverly Marsh - would say that he'd ended up in the kind of college you'd see on a list that'd make you hate yourself, having to only pay around half of the tuition because he was intelligent. Just as kind but less patient people - like Stan Uris - would say that Richie was a poor kid with raging ADHD who was too clever for his own health, and those kind of kids either ended up drug addicts or entrepreneurs. Richie, Stan said, still had the chance to go both ways. _Stan_ , Richie would say, _you know I go both ways._ _Richie_ , Stan would say, _shut the hell up_.

Richie was fueled by spite. Richie had grown up in a small town in the north where the winters were shitty and the summers full of mosquitoes and he'd worn broken glasses and patterned clothes and a chip on his shoulder. He understood everything the first time, but got confused when it was explained again. He clamped his teeth around his tongue to avoid saying stupid shit in class. He got the diagnosis and the pills and it made things a little better. He met Beverly late in high school and Stan in college and it made things a whole lot better.

Beverly and Stan let him say his stupid shit.

Most of the time.

"Richie." Stan said, and Bev sputtered out a laugh, leaning away from him. "Listen, you know that's not how you pronounce hors d'oeuvres. You know that. What are you even saying? Don't look at me like that." Richie looked up from where he was lying, his head in Bev's lap. 

"What do I know, Stanley." Richie said, cool and comfortable in the shade. "Maybe where you're from you eat hors d'oeuvres - "

"Horse divorce." Stan muttered, head bent tipped back against the cold surface of the building. "It sounds like horse divorce. Bevvie, you hear it too." Beverly was covering her smile with one hand, the other on Richie's chest to keep from jostling him too much. She hiccuped through her laughter, cheeks hot. 

"I hear nothing, Stan."

"Beverly."

"Stanley?" 

"Richie!"

"Be quiet, Tozier." Richie pressed a hand against his chest, light and poised. His mouth opened in mock offense. 

"I don't appreciate your use of my last name." He said. Stan rolled his eyes and when seconds passed, so did Richie. "You're lucky I don't have time to fight you." He said, getting up from Beverly's lap. Bev hummed, questioning and Richie waved a hand. "Got some undergrad reports to mark - "

"Some lives to ruin."

"- some reports to mark, Stan, you lanky bitch. Anyway. Gotta go to my Spot before lunch when it's still cold." He pressed a kiss to the back of Beverly's hand as he was swinging his bag over his shoulder - her skin was soft, cool from being in the shadow. "Ta, miss Marsh, you've been delightful. Stanley the manly - "

"Eat me."

"- feisty."

He waved behind him as he went out of the shade to cross the courtyard. Richie's spot was in a corner of the campus library - it seemed almost accidental, with a table crammed into the space between two towering book shelves of what seemed to be in a section with no certain title. No one was ever there, because the books were all different, vaguely categorized and in different languages but Richie was jumping to get there, entering the library building - once again, in the shade. No one was ever there, because it was small and cramped but to Richie, it didn't feel claustrophobic - almost wonderfully isolating, dampening sounds of shuffling feet and turning pages. It was calming him down, even as rounded the last bookcase - 

"Sorry, this - this place is usually deserted."

It was the shock that had made say anything at all. There was a guy at the table Richie usually sat at, that Richie always sat at, but he hadn't seen Richie at first. Richie could've backed up, gone back to where he came from and found another place to sit but it was the realization of the improbable thought that someone would actually sit there - for the first time in Richie's college years, someone was sitting there instead of him and the shock had worked as a jump cable; kicked the sentence out of his mouth. Sorry, this place is usually deserted.

The kid at the table looked up at him and Richie, who’d expected a college student in the deepest corner of the library to look exhausted, murderous, infinitely sad, was surprised and a little pleased to find daze and utter disinterest in the guy’s face.

“Hm?” The guy said - soft, dark eyes, brown hair. “Were you saying something?” Richie shook his head no, finding it hard all of a sudden, to talk. 

He looked at the book: Comically big with thick pages - theology maybe, or ancients. He wanted to say more, desperately - big, dark eyes, brown hair - but the look the guy was sending him and the fact he was sitting with his feet curled up under him, shoes on the floor told Richie that it would be rude to do so. He backed up, raising a hand.

“Nevermind,” he said. “Happy reading.” Before he left he saw the guy lean back over the book again, soft hair falling down over his brow.

2\. *not written yet, yikes*

 

3.

The third time, it was in the courtyard and it was maybe the least discreet moment of his life.

He was with Mike Hanlon on his way to class when Beverly caught up with them, latching onto Mike's side to the left of Richie. "Gentlemen," she greeted, "where you headed?" Richie bumped his shoulder against Mike's.

"Coding." He said. "This angel of a man is escorting me to class." Mike was about to protest, quite possibly saying that he was heading the same way, but Bev cut in.

"To protect you from what?"

"Hooligans like you I imagine."

"The nerve - "

"Alright, now, Richie - " Mike laughed with his arm still around Beverly's waist. "We have the same class." Richie waved a hand, dismissively and Mike grinned again. He patted Beverly's back to get her attention. "Bevvie, do you know what Stan's up to this afternoon?" Bev arched her eyebrows, face nothing but lovely and open if you didn't know her.

"I don't, why?" 

"Well, I - " He was pushing out his bottom lip and shrugging as he walked, which made for a not very convincing picture of nonchalance. "I was just wondering."

"Oh, sure, Hanlon, sure you were."

Richie zoned out when Mike responded, let his eyes flutter over the courtyard trees to the right of him in something that felt a little like clocking out or going on autopilot. Any conversation involving Stan or Mike or recently, Mikeandstan was usually his favorite and later he'd suddenly remember to pester both of them about it but not for now. He trusted his legs to not kill him and his friends to make sure his legs did their job when he absently looked at his surroundings without looking.

Richie wasn't that good at faces. He was good at coding and replicating guitar strumming by ear and remembering names of french monarchs but people's faces bled together for his inner eye. And yet he wasn't surprised when the guy from the library showed up in his peripheral vision and Richie's head whipped around so fast his necked cracked. Next to him, Mike and Beverly noticed after he'd stopped dead where he walked. 

"Richie?" Beverly called, backtracking the few feet they'd gotten away from him. "Rich, what's up?" Richie drew his eyes away but Beverly was quick, quicker than him and at once he was standing an inch away, looking in the other direction. Richie could see her face below his - it was splitting into a grin and her eyebrows were arched. It was pleased, but not surprised.

"Who's that?" Mike asked, coming over to stand on the other side of Richie. The two were obviously staring now, but Richie was still standing with his back partially turned to the guy. He shook his head, being without an answer. He's a guy, he thought of saying, lamely. He's a guy who keeps stealing my spot at the library to read old books and when he looks at me I forget how to talk. It wouldn't work so he shook his head again, groaning and Beverly gave a scandalized gasp that definitely meant that she took it the wrong way.

"Are you hiding from him? Tozier, you whore - "

"While this line of name-calling isn't totally unwarranted I'm sure I would've remembered if I slept with him." Richie said, hoping the sarcasm would overshadow the weird, misplaced longing in his voice. Bev smiled, secretive and catty, her eyes fluttering over to the guy again. Richie did not turn back around.

"He's very cute." She said and Mike hummed in what Richie assumed was agreement. "I can see the color of his eyes from all the way over here." Brown, Richie thought, yeah, I know. "Where do you know him from?" Richie waved a hand and hummed, indecisively.

"Ah, who knows. think he's in some of my classes, that's usually the case. He just looks nice, don't you think?"

"Those are some short shorts."

"Beverly Marsh, you harlot - "

At once, Beverly's phone chimed from her pocket and she fished it out, her rings clicking against her plastic cover. Richie caught a glimpse of the screen and of Bev's corresponding smile before she answered.

"Ben, you'll never guess what Richie just called me.

"Wait, no - "

"Deeply offensive."

"Hanscom, your lady's a liar."

"And now he's calling me a liar too? Ben, you're in for a ride." She winked at Richie as she got up, ran her hands through his curls and walked a few steps away to talk. Richie dared a look over his shoulder. Eddie was still there.

**Author's Note:**

> this is abandoned! if anyone wishes to continue it, be my guest, do whatever you want :) it's out of my hands. have fun!


End file.
